Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Lucia works as a servant girl in Italy and is engaged to be married. But after the pox disfigures her face, she flees in shame without telling her lover. Years later, as a reknowned Amsterdam courtesan who never goes out without her veil, Lucia is at the theater when she recognizes her long-lost fiancé, Giacomo Casanova; and she cannot resist the opportunity to encounter him again. Based on a woman who appeared briefly in Casanovas legendary diaries, Lucia emerges as a brilliant woman who becomes every bit his match. In Lucias Eyes is an elegant and moving story of love denied and transformed.

Synopsis

A servant girl in an Italian manor house in the eighteenth century, Lucia is engaged to a young man named Casanova but flees from her beloved when stricken with the pox, embarking on a wanderer's life for sixteen years until she is accidentally reunited with the now legendary lover Casanova. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

About the Author

Arthur Japin was born in Haarlem in 1956. He studied theater in Amsterdam and London and spent many years acting on stage, screen, and television. His first novel, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi, appeared in thirteen languages and is now being made into an opera and a film. He lives in Utrecht.

Arthur Japin’s The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi is available in Vintage paperback.

From the Hardcover edition.

Reading Group Guide

“Enthralling. . . . Packed with the color of eighteenth-century life. . . . A marvelous reversal of hunter and prey.” —The Washington Post Book World

1. How do Lucias early relationships shape the person she becomes? How do her feelings toward her parents change, and why? What does the Countess of Montereale give Lucia that her own mother cannot?

2. What is the significance to Lucia of the story of her feebleminded cousin Geppo [pp. 147-9]?

3. Lucia states in the beginning of the novel that she is annoyed to be aroused by the figure of Monsieur le Chevalier de Seingalt because she is “the one who arouses desire” [p. 6]. How does this early insight into Lucias personality affect the readers opinion of her as her story unfolds? Lucia seems to believe that even before her illness she was a “carnal” being, as evidenced by her “satisfaction” with her submission to the Count of Montereale [pp. 99-100]. Does Japin create a sense of inevitability in Lucias fate, even before her unfortunate illness?

4. Monsieur de Pompignac taught Lucia that intellectual reasoning and knowledge are paramount. Lucia learned her lessons well. While overcoming smallpox, Lucia concludes: “If my reason could save me from this moment, there was nothing from which it could not deliver me” [p. 93]. However, Zélide tells Lucia, “Reason is but the shell of consciousness, beneath which emotion is far more knowing” [p. 117]. Does Lucia reconcile Zélides teachings with those of Monsieur de Pompignac? Is the conflict of reason versus emotion ever reconcilable for her? Which serves Lucia better in her life: reason or emotion?

5. Lucia claims to have faith in self-delusion. She says, “Self-delusion has the benefit of letting us believe that everything is still possible. I have a talent for that” [p. 14]. She also says, “Truth is more than the things you see; that is why its value is only relative. I am very careful with it” [p. 16]. And she goes so far as to say, “The only thing that can change reality is the mind. . . . If one would change things, one neednt touch them; one need only see them differently” [p. 46]. In what ways does Lucia delude herself? When does she choose the truth over self-delusion?

6. Lucia argues that she does not hide behind her veil. “I hide the world. . . . Through that haze of lace and silk it looks so much softer” [p. 12]. Is she being truthful when she makes this claim? What event motivates Lucia to wear a veil initially? What impels her to wear it permanently?

7. Lucia states, “At last, I had stopped imagining myself in the gaze of others. . . . And so the mask I had put on to distance myself actually brought me closer to other people” [p. 198]. How does wearing a veil bring Lucia closer to others? How does Lucias veil affect others perception of her? Does it affect how she perceives herself?

8. Does the Venice that Lucia visits with Zélide [p. 128] measure up to the image of that city impressed upon her by the Countess of Montereale [pp. 36-38]? Likewise, does the Amsterdam that Lucia inhabits [p. 163] measure up to the image of that city impressed upon her by Monsieur de Pompignac [p. 142]? How does Japin develop his portraits of these two cities through Lucias eyes?

9. Of Amsterdam society Lucia says, “Tolerance is not the equal of acceptance. Indeed, the two are more nearly opposites, the former sometimes serving as a subtle means of repression” [p. 163]. In the book, appearances and looks are very focal to the urban societies of eighteenth-century Europe. Is American society in the twenty-first century any different than Amsterdam with respect to its treatment of scarred or unsightly people? How might contemporary Western society respond to a veiled woman?

10. Lucia says:

Oddly, it is the advance of science in this century that has torn many souls apart from within. Here the simpleminded . . . trusting only to what they feel, are at some advantage. Their concern is as ever for the things that affect their daily life; as for mysteries, only those they encounter within it matter. They respond to these things impulsively, as they have for generations, and whatever they cant reckon in this way they leave in the hands of Providence. The new discoveries, however, contradict these emotions; even the existence of God no longer seems a certainty. Those who immerse themselves in these revelations have grown confused [p. 48].

As an explanation of her departure from Europe to America, Lucia elaborates on this “confusion” of her contemporaries:

Perhaps this is what compels me to part from Europe. That land is too old. It has been wounded too many times, the earth plowed too often and too deeply. . . . Time and again, the Europeans have learned that following their natures leads only to chaos, and they no longer dare to trust their inclinations. Instead they have delivered themselves up to the savior of reason. . . . Giacomo is that way, going so far as to wish to rationalize his happiness. This you must forgive him. One can never completely escape the confusion of ones age, and I am no exception. For a long time, I too tried to carry the yoke of reason, but it was too heavy for me. I rejected it [pp. 230—231].

From Lucias point of view, the Age of Enlightenment resulted in confusion rather than progress. How does Casanova reflect this confusion? Can Lucia reject the confusion of her age entirely, or has she been shaped by it herself? Has Lucias education, her exposure to scholarship and reason in the house of the Morandi Manzolinis [pp. 103-108], benefited her in any way that she is not acknowledging? How might Lucia have fared differently if she had been schooled in religion and faith and never exposed to science and knowledge?

11. Lucia says of men, “Most aim to please with little understanding of our pleasure. . . . More than anything, men want that which has been withheld. A happy certainty is no match for a mystery denied. Given a choice, a man will always take the unknown [pp. 8-10].” What is Lucias opinion about men? Do these views change or remain the same at different stages in her life?

12. At what point does Lucia realize that the Chevalier de Seingalt is Casanova? What does he do or say that causes her to realize that the adult Casanova is a different person than the young man whom she loved and who loved her? Why does this realization make her finally enter into the wager he proposes?

13. How are Lucias emotional and physical relations with the adult Casanova different from her relations with other men? What has Giacomo Casanova learned as a seducer of women? Is he more artful than Lucia when it comes to seduction? How does viewing Casanova through Lucias eyes alter the readers preconceptions of Casanova?

14. After her illness, Lucia deduces that she must abandon Casanova because staying with him would have “produced two unhappy people,” whereas leaving him would have produced “only one” [p. 97]. After meeting de Seingalt years later, she recalculates with hindsight: “Would the tender Giacomo of Pasiano have ever changed into the cynical Jacques de Seingalt if I had listened to my girlish heart and not subdued my fierce desire with clear-eyed foresight? What if I had dared to show him myself ravaged, trusting to our love, letting life and nature run their course instead of sacrificing myself like some inane operatic heroine? In that case, I alone would have been disfigured; now we both were” [p. 158]. With the benefit of hindsight, might Lucia have trusted to their love if she had the chance to do it again? Should she have? How might Lucias life have turned out differently if Casanova had rejected her? Is Casanova in fact “disfigured” by Lucias youthful rejection of him?

15. Casanova states the lesson of his own life: “It is unpardonable sin not to take what love puts before you” [p. 223]. What does Lucia think of this “lesson?” Why does Lucianot view this as her own lifes lesson?

16. After their wager is over, and Galathée removes her veil to become Lucia again for Casanova, she says of her appearance “at that moment it wasnt a source of shame. . . . Suddenly I saw, like some saintly vision, the lesson Fate had been trying to teach me” [p. 217]. What did Lucia learn in that moment? Did this revelation make her suffering worthwhile in her view?

17. What in Seingalts final letter to Lucia makes her change her mind and leave with Jamieson?